OVP: Richard Jewell (2019)

Film: Richard Jewell (2019)
Stars: Paul Walter Hauser, Sam Rockwell, Kathy Bates, Jon Hamm, Olivia Wilde
Director: Clint Eastwood
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Supporting Actress-Kathy Bates)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

I have said in the past that I think that Republican politics can properly be put into movies, even if I disagree with them, if the movie is well-made and written.  I think that film is truly a universal artistic medium, and one that should be able to encompass even angles that I don't believe in, and perhaps no person is better-suited for such an argument as Clint Eastwood.  The most-talented conservative director (at least outwardly conservative) in Tinseltown today, Eastwood has made truly great pictures, including his masterpiece Unforgiven.  However, Eastwood's latest films, pretty much every picture since Letters from Iwo Jima, have struggled to combine the clear Libertarian message he's trying to portray within their confines.  American Sniper came very close, but royally botched its message in the ending (otherwise this was a great character study).  Today, we see what happens when everything goes wrong for Eastwood.  When the director's best instincts disappear and he indulges all of his worst traits as a director in order to fit in politics even when they don't work.  Today, we're going to get to Richard Jewell.

(Real Life Doesn't Have Spoilers...But There's Quite a Bit of Fiction Here So Maybe You Need the Alert Regardless) The film focuses on Richard Jewell (Hauser), a security guard at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.  For those who were too young or don't remember, there was a bomb that went off in Centennial Park during a concert that killed one woman (and another person indirectly) and injured over 100 people.  Jewell was lauded initially as a hero, and then was considered one of the prime suspects at the time, particularly after an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitiution listed him as a person-of-interest despite the evidence connecting Jewell to the crime being pretty much nonexistent.  Jewell would successfully, after being exonerated, receive compensation from media organizations such as NBC News and the New York Post for defamation, and even receive a public apology from then-Attorney General Janet Reno.

This is all a very interesting story, and would make for a good movie.  There are more twists in this tale than you can remember at the time (perhaps mostly because it took nearly a decade after the attacks to find the true culprit, Eric Rudolph, at which point most people had forgotten about the bombing).  However, Eastwood doesn't craft that.  He instead creates a movie that takes what could be a decent conservative argument for media overreach and government interference into the life of an innocent man & tries to insinuate that this is the only goal of these two bodies.  In doing so, his politics over-reach and become bombastic rather than compelling.

He does this through two of the ugliest performances I saw all year onscreen, those given by Olivia Wilde (as journalist Kathy Scruggs) and Jon Hamm (as fictional FBI agent Tom Shaw).  Wilde's performance has already been under intense scrutiny, both because she's playing a real person (as a result, there's more responsibility to ensure that who she's portraying is given a modicum of accuracy, particularly considering the real-life Scruggs died in 2001 so she's not alive to defend herself), but it's a gross performance.  She plays Scruggs as a party girl who seems to constantly be drunk and yelling in the newsroom, and who is willing to sleep with Hamm's Shaw in order to get a story.  Considering there's no evidence this actually happened, it's a lazy trope that the beautiful woman in the newsroom can only get a story by putting out to the man in charge, and Hamm, Wilde, & Eastwood should be ashamed of putting such a sexist cliche into the picture.  One kind of wonders why Wilde, who is famous enough to not need to say yes to such a potentially damaging role, was willing to take on such a part.  She's also to blame for making her Kathy a scenery-chewing cartoon.  Hamm is her equal (and equally terrible) as Shaw, an angry Snidely Whiplash-style figure who is using his government power to tie innocent Richard Jewell (and his sweet old mother) to the train tracks.

Eastwood fills out most of the (too long) movie by having other instances of Jewell acting like a fool, trusting authority that doesn't trust him (sort of brushing past the fact that Jewell, as portrayed onscreen, had behaved quite inappropriately when given some form of power, harassing students & even assaulting one on a college campus).  But he also makes sure everyone else is an idiot save for Sam Rockwell's anti-government attorney Watson Bryant, who is clearly the Eastwood proxy in the picture, and gives multiple tirades about the evils of the media & the government.

I wouldn't have seen this movie (I'm not an Eastwood completist, though I do end up seeing a lot of his movies) were it not for the Oscar buzz surrounding Kathy Bates.  We're a week away from the nominations, so we don't know yet whether Bates will get her fourth citation for her work here, but she did score a Golden Globe nomination for her performance.  Bates isn't really that special here.  She's Kathy Bates so she's not bad, and probably the film's best performance (that might also be Rockwell, and if you know me at all you know that's saying something as Rockwell isn't really my cup-of-tea), but that's not saying much.  It's a showy role (I could totally see this getting a nomination considering the nature of the performance and how she gets some big moments in the back half of the picture), but it's more sympathetic than great acting.  Her Bobi is the only character that you can embrace easily without getting covered in the film's politics.  The rest of the movie is not so lucky.

The Report (2019)

Film: The Report (2019)
Stars: Adam Driver, Annette Bening, Jon Hamm, Jennifer Morrison, Matthew Rhys, Maura Tierney
Director: Scott Z. Burns
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Every year, I try and try and to see as many movies during this time frame as I can, and I always fail.  The Oscar season is a cruel mistress, with so many films attempting to come to light from Halloween through Christmas, and especially after Thanksgiving.  This process doesn't just leave me at-a-loss-it also causes a lot of movies that I might otherwise have caught in July to be missed or put onto my endless Netflix queue.  A film like The Report, with a stellar cast and a serious subject, is a film that walks a fine line by releasing itself in November-it could either become a major Oscar contender, a film that expands its core audience of devoted cinephiles and politically-minded theatergoers, or could just stay within that niche audience.  Considering I literally caught this movie on the last night it was out (it only played in one theater in my area, a major metropolitan market for movies), and I nearly missed it as a result, I suspect it will stay a niche picture, one that will be a struggle to name-check even by February.  The question for today is-is that the fate this picture deserved?

(I'm not issuing a spoiler alert because you should've paid attention when this was happening, and if you didn't that's why things like this go unnoticed) The movie follows the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into torture tactics that took place in the Bush administration in the years following 9/11.  The film centers on Dan Jones (Driver), a handsome, smart, driven man who works for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Bening) on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and is investigating the "enhanced interrogation tactics" of the Bush administration.  Dan becomes a man driven by desire to uncover the truth and bring it to light, to the point where at times it feels like his lack of confidence in Feinstein to be able to get past both the Republicans and the Bush & Obama White Houses (both of whom do not want this to see the light of day in the film) might drive him to break the law.  In real life both administrations were critical of the findings of the report, calling them partisan and inaccurate.  The movie flashes back to the torture that was chronicled in the report, as well as Feinstein & Jones' struggle to have the report see the light of day, which eventually it does, just days before Feinstein loses her position as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The film is shocking even if you followed this report's release in 2014 and what had already been released about the behavior of the CIA in regard to torturing suspects, many of whom should not have warranted capture.  The film picks-and-chooses when it uses real-life figures like Feinstein or Jon Hamm's Denis McDonough, and when they fictionalize what are obviously real-life people for legal reasons (Maura Tierney is clearly meant to be playing Gina Haspel), but it's more-or-less accurate in what happened.  It's hard to watch, particularly for those Democrats who have turned a blind eye to the failings of the Obama administration (especially in the wake of the more egregious sins of the Trump administration), but it's fair to say that while the Obama administration stopped enhanced interrogation basically the moment they took office, people like McDonough and John Brennan warred publicly & privately with people like Feinstein, as well as other figures such as Mark Udall & Sheldon Whitehouse (both featured in this film), and the bravery that resulted in these few senators standing up to their own party in the White House to get this report into the public eye.

All of this sounds great, and if The Report simply serves as a reminder of how senators can hold their own party in the White House accountable until they do the right thing (HINT HINT) it'd be worth as many people seeing this movie as possible.  However, from a cinematic perspective this film isn't very good, even from a political nerd such as myself.  The torture sequences, and particularly the torturers being portrayed, fall flat and don't have enough connection to the rest of the story other than to have us look on in horror.  Driver finds a determination in the boy scout dealings of Dan Jones, but he offers little insight into this man, and I feel like it's a cop-out to say that someone as intelligent and driven as Jones wouldn't have more of a personality (or at least a sex life).  He's better than Jon Hamm, who seems to be playing the same version of a handsome, line-reading figure of authority in every movie of the past five years.  For all of the criticism of January Jones post-Mad Men, has Hamm done literally anything approaching how good he was as Don Draper, and why is it that Jones gets critically-maligned while he keeps getting chances after under-performing pretty every filmic role he's had (I know why-that was rhetorical)?

Bening is the best part of the movie.  While she doesn't try to imitate Feinstein's distinctive speaking cadences (Feinstein has been in public life the whole time I've followed politics, so I know her voice anywhere, and Bening isn't trying here), she gets her mannerisms down and I loved the thoughtfulness she brings to key scenes.  Feinstein is a senator noted for her caution, someone who frustrates both Democrats & Republicans, but is a serious politician pretty much everyone attributes integrity toward.  The scenes where she tells off McDonough (they give Bening two Oscar moments) are obviously a joy for fans of the actress, but she puts such care even into throwaway lines to Jones that it feels like Bening did her homework.  She's created a woman who has had her comments scrutinized for decades, to the point where she can't say anything without mentally checking how it will be used against her.  If the rest of the film had shown the same level of detail to their character, The Report would have been a worthwhile cinematic affair rather than just an honorable attempt to remind people of how Congress can do the right thing even when it's not politically convenient.

Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)

Film: Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)
Stars: Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Cailee Spaeny, Lewis Pullman, Chris Hemsworth
Director: Drew Goddard
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

It's been six years since Drew Goddard's last film, The Cabin in the Woods, came along and sort of knocked the horror genre for a loop.  Twisty and smart, Goddard, one of the more innovative screenwriters currently working in Hollywood (he was nominated for an Oscar for The Martian, and was arguably the most consistent screenwriter on Lost, crafting episodes like "The Shape of Things to Come" and "Flashes Before Your Eyes"), is great with dense plots, smart ideas, and creating vivid human beings out of what could have been stock characters.  I didn't realize until after Bad Times at the El Royale was done that Goddard was the man behind it, but I knew something was up because I was struck throughout the entire film by how good it was.  Despite the occasional plot hole (we'll get there in the spoiler section), Bad Times at El Royale is surely the film this year that I disagree in the opposite direction of the critics the most, thinking it's terrific while they find it middling.  I don't see how they aren't catching that this is smart, spry, filled with rich performances, clever visuals, and Goddard's increasingly signature look at subverting expectations while rarely sacrificing his story to create a twist.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film takes place at a hotel outside of the normal world, literally on the edge of Nevada and California (a key plot point as the hotel is able to have different laws because it's in two different states).  In an opening that feels reminiscent of Clue, the movie introduces us to the tenants of the evening: Father Flynn (Bridges as a kindly priest), Laramie Sullivan (Hamm as a bombastic, racist vacuum salesman), Darlene Sweet (Erivo as a quiet, aspiring singer), Emily Summerspring (Johnson as a woman who signs "fuck you" in the ledger rather than give her real name), and Miles Miller (Pullman, as the clearly disturbed bellhop).  The movie then starts breaking out the film into chapters, borrowing from Quentin Tarantino (I called it Clue meets Tarantino in a text while driving home from the theater, and I've seen multiple other reviewers now make the same comparison), and we learn that all of these people aren't quite what they seem.  As the night wears on, we are introduced to the final two of our main players: Emily's warped sister Rose (Spaeny) and her gorgeous, sociopathic cult leader Billy Lee (Hemsworth), who comes in to cause mass chaos in the picture's final third.

The movie is rich in plot, which is a challenge for a lot of pictures.  The film opens with Nick Offerman getting shot by an unarmed assailant, and we actually never figure out why this happens.  This is perhaps the film's only significant plot hole, though, which is saying something as it unfolds so swiftly but in such a clear path that you almost feel like the answer to who the killer is is baked into the picture (my date and I kept thinking it was Miles, and that would be revealed as the film goes as there was a "kid" with them on the robbery, and considering Goddard's stint on Lost, perhaps there's some subtle clues reminding us of this if we rewatch the film).  The movie runs the fine line well between giving us genuine surprises (particularly the shock deaths of Hamm and Johnson so early in the movie when less famous actors were available for the filmic chopping block) while only that one time leaving us with a shock-for-the-sake-of-it.  Goddard's crown as one of the better screenwriters currently working in Hollywood remains secure after El Royale.

While Goddard himself is the star, his casting agent deserves a crown of her own (Carmen Cuba, well done) as no one is giving a false note in this lineup.  Erivo, getting her first major role in the movie, regularly sings to heighten the mood of the film.  There's a wonderful scene where she and Bridges, now teamed up after she took a bottle to his head in an previous scene, are being watched by a gun-wielding Johnson through a two-way mirror.  While Johnson is the one peering in through the mirror, it's actually Erivo & Bridges who know they're being watched, and Erivo is singing to mask Bridges taking apart the floorboards.  It's a riveting, spellbinding scene, one that showcases her vocals and acting ability, and combined with Widows, this should be a one-two punch to prove she should be cast in everything now.  Johnson and Bridges are so consistently awesome that it should be no surprise they land their characters well here: Johnson's dangerous, unknowable woman plays best in hindsight, when you realize that's the way she'll stay so only the slightest hints at who she is are ever given to the audience, while Bridges nails his role as a conman whom you're constantly deciphering what is the truth and what is a fiction to improve his situation.  Hemsworth has never been better than his nasty, Manson-esque Billy Lee, intensely sexy (Hemsworth spends the entire film in a state-of-undress) but also deeply violent (he murders Johnson's Emily in cold blood).  Hemsworth is entering that portion of his career where he'll need to start evolving from his matinee idol good looks to perhaps more challenging acting roles than Thor, and if this is any indication, the other Chris's should be quaking in their boots.

There's so much more to discuss here (Miles' left field "I've killed 123 people" had my jaw drop to the floor, and was one of the few times Goddard wasn't borrowing from Tarantino as Quentin would have surely had our shaking bellhop be a serial killer to go with the 60's motif, rather than a shell-shocked Vietnam veteran...plus who is the man on that tape-MLK or one of the Kennedys?), but I'm going to end it with a discussion of my rating.  The film probably deserves a four-star ranking, and if I did a half system, it wouldn't land five.  The Offerman plot hole and the picture's last ten minutes (a bit too sentimental, and a bit too easy compared to the creative places we've been otherwise), but the rest of the movie is so damn good that I'm pulling the trigger and giving out my second five-star of the year.  Like Killing Them Softly before it, El Royale is the rare film that I say the critics got wrong, and will likely save years from now when they realize that it's an ace movie with a structure that young film fans will salivate over for years.  See it on the big screen to enjoy Seamus McGarvey's rich cinematography and Goddard's great plotting, and join me in the comments if you want to discuss the film's many twists.

John's Worst Films of 2017

Tonight, I will officially be announcing in my real life my favorites of the year (I do a teensy little awards show every year), and you’ll be getting my Top 10 best films list of the 2017 tomorrow on the blog.  However, in a year that was such a disaster in terms of the news, it has to be said that it wasn’t just politics that was causing anguish: it was also the movies.

While there was no egregiously-bad film like Stonewall that I managed to catch this year, there were surely a lot of bad movies that came out in 2017, or perhaps more damning, bland films.  Movies in 2017 were consistently “fine” or “okay” and rarely fascinating in a daring way, making going to the movies dull.  For that reason you’re not going to see movies that I thought took risks (like, say, mother!) mostly because I want filmmakers to take these kinds of chances, even if they aren’t always successful (it’s also because mother! is still better than all of these pictures, and that Razzy nomination for Lawrence in particular is just horrendous, as she’s good in the picture and not a little bit “the worst of the year”).  Instead, we go with the below failures, all of which I count as the last pleasant of the year (listed alphabetically):

Beauty and the Beast (dir. Bill Condon)

How do you ruin one of my all-time favorite movies?  Perhaps by draining it of humor, panache, or singers who can properly sing (sorry Emma, I love you but no, just no).  The film is underwhelming from the original in literally every way, and the sets look less like an organic castle and more like something you’d see in a Disneyland theme ride.  The cash grab clearly worked, but must Disney destroy everything special it makes with heinous duplication?

The Disaster Artist (dir. James Franco)

Franco’s last minute miss at the Oscars was almost certainly due to the sexual harassment allegations against him.  It should have been because he plays his role as Tommy Wiseau as a joke, a comic look at a man who has no understanding of himself.  He’s mysterious because Franco doesn’t do any homework, claiming “it’s just Tommy!” in a cheeky frat-boy move that cruelly tries to be a message movie about people without talent succeeding, but instead is a passionless, dull affair that feels less like talent letting loose and more like actors tricking their fans into paying for a bad film.  Also, Dave Franco gives arguably the most listless performance I recall seeing all year.

Downsizing (dir. Alexander Payne)

Stuffed to the brim with interesting ideas, Payne’s script ignores all of them, giving the audience just “passage of time” jumps when the picture itself could be at its most fascinating.  Weighed down by Matt Damon as a character that clearly has never had an original thought in his life, the movie meanders around major questions of the purpose of life, the foolishness of man, and the selfishness of “sacrifice,” but it doesn’t have a point-of-view on any of them.

The Greatest Showman (dir. Michael Gracey)

Though the music is occasionally fun (I liked “Never Enough” and “Rewrite the Stars” in particular), but this is a terrible actual movie.  No one is bringing their A-Game with the acting, with particularly awful performances from Jackman and Zendaya, both weakly connecting to their costars and in Jackman’s case, being in strained voice.  And that “This is Me” number might sound great coming out of Keala Settle, but the lyrics and back-half of the plot is so hackneyed it would have been cast out as too syrupy even in the fourth season of Glee.

Marjorie Prime (dir. Michael Almereyda)

Like Downsizing, this is not short on ideas or fine actors in the cast, but it has few answers for these questions.  It’s hard to criticize a film that finally gives Lois Smith a leading role, but her supporting cast does her no favors, with Jon Hamm playing his character as merely a plot device, and Geena Davis/Tim Robbins phoning in their roles with little care.  Coupled with a bizarre ending that feels so toss-away it’s difficult to figure out not only the purpose of this film, but also the point.

Marjorie Prime (2017)

Film: Marjorie Prime (2017)
Stars: Lois Smith, Jon Hamm, Tim Robbins, Geena Davis
Director: Michael Almereyda
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

One of my favorite moments in all of cinema, perhaps my favorite moment in any Steven Spielberg film, features Lois Smith.  In Minority Report there's a terrific scene where she and Tom Cruise are in a greenhouse, surrounded by animated plants, and Smith is giving Cruise a lesson in the pre-cog system.  In the hands of a less capable actor, this would come across as lazy writing, using an unlikely meeting to unload a host of world-building expositional dialogue onto the audience, but Smith doesn't play it that way.  She creates a fascinating, brilliant but creepy scientist who infuses the action-adventure, already smart and well-structured to this point, with a sense of danger and a bit of malice.  You leave wanting more for her, assured she knows even more than what she's telling Cruise's befuddled John Anderton. Smith's ability here is a trademark skill of a longtime character actor, and I was fascinated by someone wanting to put her in the center of a film, rather than on its periphery.  Sadly Smith's acting ability is not able to help this long, draggy sci-fi film encumbered with ideas and "how smart are we's" but never actually connecting with the audience.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers around a woman named Marjorie (Smith), who is in her 80's and battling dementia.  The film is set in 2050, and she lives in a posh seaside house where her daughter Tess (Davis), with whom she has a complicated relationship, has purchased a holographic projector that simulates her late husband Walter (Hamm).  The movie is almost entirely a series of conversations between two different people, in the first half Walter talking to Marjorie and her son-in-law Jon (Robbins).  The back half looks into the future with Marjorie and then Tess dying and becoming holographic "primes."

The film's premise is interesting, perhaps looking at how we sacrifice our current situation so fully by living in the past, or how we never really resolve conflicts with loved ones, or the loss we experience when they leave us.  But Marjorie Prime is more intent on thinking it's interesting than actually becoming so.  Central to the story's plot is a family secret, about how Marjorie's son Damien committed suicide 40 years prior, but this feels so tacked on and never properly addressed.  The idea of a family skirting around the same unspoken horror as the death of a child tearing them asunder has made dozens of great movies in the past, but Marjorie Prime treats it almost with the same importance as a forgotten first date.

This "great idea, poor execution" is consistent throughout the film.  We never really understand why Tess and Marjorie dislike each other, nor what Jon's opinion on his wife's family is, or really anything knowable about Walter.  Smith is the centerpiece, and too compelling to make this a complete failure, but Davis & Robbins add little to these roles, including understanding; both were actors who once sung onscreen, but years of inactivity or minor roles have left them unable to coast off of their once formidable onscreen personas and there's nothing "new" at play here.  Hamm has the hardest role, but is a complete miss as a robotic presence trying to find his programmed self.  I know it's become fashionable to diss January Jones whenever she's not Betty Draper, but honestly-has Hamm done anything worthwhile outside of Mad Men?  He's wooden and does little other than be handsome in Marjorie Prime.  The movie is a slog as a result, boring when it should be thrilling, and without enough central conflict to get anything out of its concept.

OVP: Baby Driver (2017)

Film: Baby Driver (2017)
Stars: Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Lily James, Eiza Gonzalez, Jon Hamm, Jamie Foxx
Director: Edgar Wright
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Film Editing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Seven years ago, I had one of the more surprising moments of my cinematic life when I saw Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.  Up until that point I had never seen one of the films of Edgar Wright, and only knew him by his trailers, none of which particularly interested me.  Michael Cera had at that point become something of a movie star, so it wasn't surprising to see him headlining a comedy for the summer, but like Jonah Hill & Seth Rogen, names I associated with him, he wasn't a calling card for me.  Still, the reviews were quite strong for the picture, and the movie I was supposed to see was sold out, so I thought "let's give this a shot, shall we, as I'm already here?" and so I went in and saw the movie, and I LOVED IT.  I have seen Scott Pilgrim more times than probably any film from 2010, including The Social Network, and I can quote most of the lines.  I was so hooked that I was surprised when Edgar Wright suddenly became less prolific, and didn't make another movie that seemed to capture that quick-witted, visual-flare style of Scott Pilgrim again (perhaps it was due to the Box Office not loving the picture as much as I did).  So when Baby Driver's trailers invited me back looking like they'd been torn out of the same page book as Scott Pilgrim, it didn't take any coaxing for me to be in the theaters.  I was there opening weekend.

(Spoilers Ahead) Inevitably Baby Driver was not going to be Scott Pilgrim, if in part because it wasn't going to be a discovery, but man did I like it anyway.  The movie centers on a getaway driver named Baby (Elgort, perhaps the only actor working who could pull off that moniker), who is about to undertake a heist with a motley crew made up of Buddy (Hamm), his wife Darling (Gonzalez), Bats (Foxx), and Doc (Spacey), the leader of the group.  Like all good crime movies, we see a successful heist to kickoff the picture, and then it unfolds into a series of deadly mistakes, which lead Baby to rebel against the crew as he wants to get out and start a new life with a young waitress named Debora (James).  The film unfurls with multiple characters dying in the process, and a lovely, happy ending akin to Scott Pilgrim as the picture unfolds.

The fun of Scott Pilgrim was that, even at its most ridiculous (how is it that Ramona Flowers has so many evil exes that have superpowers?), was that the lines were snappy and the characters were heartily felt, and certainly the script here delivers.  While there was nothing quite as remarkable as "Julie Powers Has Issues" (I still do a spit take), these are all actors with clearly fine comic timing, give or take Lily James (who isn't really asked to be funny), and some of the visual bits, like anything surrounding Baby's name or his relationship with the deaf man he lives with, feel plum and full of movie positivity.  Honestly-one of the rare things about the first half of Baby Driver might be it's so joyfully in love with its main character, and I liked that.  After seeing him now in a couple of movies, I'm still not entirely sure about how extensive Ansel Elgort's skills are as an actor, but he's nearly impossible not to enjoy watching, and not just because of that exaggeratedly handsome mug of his.  He has to be one of the most charming figures to come to the movies in a long while, and he is exactly right for this part as Baby.  The film lives or dies based on his work, keeping the movie and intrigue about his character steady, and he does that with aplomb.  I genuinely don't know where his career will take him, but between this and his similarly well-cast work in The Fault in Our Stars, he's at least quite fine at picking out scripts.

The movie derails a bit in terms of its fun in the final third of the film, when it borrows perhaps too liberally from Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive, and both Kevin Spacey & Jon Hamm see their characters go in too extreme of directions.  Spacey, while an actor with fine comic timing, doesn't really have a read on a character whose motives are hard to suss out unless you want to start projecting some sort of homosexual love that he has for Baby, and Hamm can't seem to ground his character's dramatics enough toward the end of the movie, making him (in my opinion) the weakest link in the picture, which was not an opinion frequently shared by other critics.  Honestly, for all of the criticism that January Jones gets for being a limited actor, aside from spoofing his handsome-man persona on 30 Rock, has Jon Hamm ever done anything approaching the gift he exhibited in 30 Rock?

That said, for the first half, and occasionally in the second, this is a delight to behold.  Wright combines fun, energy, and wit (both visual and aural) so well onscreen that even when he gets a little bloated or overly confident, it's hard not to dismiss that while you're enjoying your time in the theater.  If you haven't yet, catch this (or Scott Pilgrim), as it's now available on DVD.  And share your thoughts on the picture below!

25 Random Thoughts on the Emmy Nominations

Emmy-nominated presenters Uzo Aduba and Cat Deeley

Well, it's time for one of my favorite features here on the blog-the post-nominations random train-of-thought list of what I thought coming out of this morning's Emmy nominations.  Each awards show I run down the 25 totally random things that go through my head as I slowly memorize the nominations.  Shall we take a look?

1. Anyone else think it was odd that they picked two surefire nominees (Uzo Aduba and Cat Deeley) to present the nominations?  Neither of them looked actually surprised by their own nominations (just for their show's).

2. Really?  The Emmys skipped Empire, arguably the buzziest show on television (and it's on a major network...the major network, in fact, that is airing the Emmys this year!), to once again go with Downton Abbey and Homeland.  Only Taraji P. Henson scored major love for the series, as Terence Howard, Jussie Smollett, and Jennifer Hudson all were left in the cold as well.

3. Really-Naked and Afraid is an Emmy nominee?!?  Really?!?!?!?!  Why not just nominate the Kardashians while we're at it.  This is why I hate reality television.

4. Jim Parsons' snub has to be the story of the morning, particularly considering Mayim Bialik made it.  I have to say, though, that The Big Bang Theory was bordering on unwatchable this past season-even the Amy/Sheldon/Penny trio episodes weren't any good.  And the sexism and homophobia was entering Two and a Half Men territory.  Perhaps this is the end?

5. Modern Family is losing this year-only two nominated regulars?  It's down to the bare minimum at this point, and I suspect Veep or Transparent makes the cut instead.

6. Does anyone actually watch Episodes or House of Lies?

7. I actually think that, barring Amy Schumer totally dominating the conversation, that Amy Poehler could finally break her streak this year.

8. DANDY MOTT!!!!!!

9. Also, if you're into that sort of thing, TATIANA MASLANY!!!!

10. Between the Empire snubs, Kerry Washington being skipped, and Gina Rodriguez also not making it, there may be some credence to an EmmysSoWhite hashtag.

11. Do we really need eight nominees for Supporting Actress?  I honestly have never even heard of that Niecy Nash show.  Not that she's whom I would cut (gotta love a first-time nominee), but just saying.

12. Jon Hamm will win an Emmy this year...but not for Mad Men.  His Reverend Wayne is the funniest thing I've seen in a while...also the picture the Emmys picked for Hamm may be the handsomest I've ever seen.

13. Could Guest Actress in a Comedy be more boring-Joan Cusack, Christine Baranski, and Elizabeth Banks have been playing these roles for years-come on Emmy, promote them to supporting or let it go.  The same for Michael J. Fox and Beau Bridges over in Drama Guest.

14. I am so excited that Moss, Hamm, and Hendricks all made it for the final season-here's to hoping one of them finally wins.  Also, I'm super pumped by the Game of Thrones nominations.

15. If I have to endure as many years of Breaking Bad's ubiquity with Better Call Saul, I will no longer watch the Emmys.

16. Ha!  Grace of Monaco after all of that critical drubbing somehow landed on Best TV Movie!  I hope Nicole shows up.

17. David Oyelowo also looks very fetching in his Emmy photo...and will win this as a makeup for his Oscar snub (as well as for being in a stunningly weak field-where's Bill Paxton?).

18. Every single one of the Best Actress in a Miniseries nominees is an Oscar nominee or winner.  This feels a little bit like a cheap way to pick up an EGOT as a result.  Also, why not just throw Kidman in there while you're at it?

19. Will Emmy prove it's more about the performance or the politics?  That's what Mo'Nique is asking...probably about Finn Wittrock and his need to win an Emmy (just kidding-glad to see Mo back acting-I am guessing she wins as well).

20. It bums me out royally that all of the Variety Talk Series nominees star straight white men.  Talented straight white men, but still.

21. Tress Macneille gets her first Emmy nomination after over 450 episodes of The Simpsons!  Huzzah!  Also suspiciously perennial nominee Harry Shearer is nowhere to be seen (perhaps the TV Academy didn't like his temper tantrum?).

22. Amy Poehler at least will win for writing the Globes even if Julia Louis-Dreyfus wins again.

23. There's an Emmy category for Best Narrator?  Also, Miranda Richardson is the narrator of National Geographic Wild?

24. Can Rachel Portman get an Emmy to go along with her Oscar for scoring Bessie?

25. I hate Anthony Bourdain-Klum/Gunn, Bergeron, Lynch, Deeley-don't care who wins as long as it's not Bourdain.

And there you have it-my thoughts on this morning's Emmy nominations.  What about yours?  I suspect you have thoughts, so let's get them out in the open!  Click the comments below!

Emmy Predictions: The Dramas

Today is the last day that Emmy ballots can be submitted, and since the nominations will be officially announced in two weeks (July 16th, to be exact), I figured in kicking off our week of mega-posting (every day is getting two posts at least, guaranteed), I thought it would be appropriate to start off the week with one of the more popular segments on the blog: predictions!  I keep hearing this year's contests are some of the closets in years.  Let's see if I agree (we'll start with the dramas):

Best Drama Series

1. Mad Men
2. House of Cards
3. Game of Thrones
4. Orange is the New Black
5. Empire
6. Better Call Saul
7. Downton Abbey

The Lowdown: In the first year of the seven-wide nominations (is this really necessary...though also is the random-number nominee list at the Oscars really necessary...the answer to both is no), we have a few shows that, regardless of their chances of winning are assured nominations (Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Orange is the New Black, and House of Cards).  Empire was a zeitgeist moment and more importantly was on a broadcast network at a time when they can't get critical acclaim for a drama to save their lives, so that's in, as is the successful spinoff Better Call Saul.  The last slot seems to be a battle between The Good Wife (which missed last year but has competed in the past), The Americans (which is always the bridesmaid), and Downton Abbey (a repeat nominee that has seen finer days).  I'm going with Downton since this is still the Emmys and it doesn't have to hit sixth place, but seventh to make it (it also sort of proves that 7-wide is unnecessary, as the Top 6 looks like a pretty respectable list).

Best Actor in a Drama

1. Jon Hamm (Mad Men)
2. Kevin Spacey (House of Cards)
3. Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul)
4. Terrence Howard (Empire)
5. Kyle Chandler (Bloodline)
6. Clive Owen (The Knick)

The Lowdown: The Emmy nominations are always broken out between the potential winners (in this case Hamm, Spacey, and Odenkirk) and the guys trying to land another nomination, likely in the process gaining 4-5 nominations and an eventual trophy, because Emmy loves to repeat.  As a result, I think that Kyle Chandler, who made it for years on Friday Night Lights, should be back again for Bloodline, while Terrence Howard/Clive Owen have the prestige of being an Oscar nominee now starring on a television series.  About the only one of the contenders trying to beat them out that I see potentially making it is Jeff Daniels, who was nominated last year (which at the Emmys always makes you a threat), but The Newsroom has faded so much that this seems like a rough sell.

Best Actress in a Drama

1. Viola Davis (How to Get Away with Murder)
2. Taraji P. Henson (Empire)
3. Robin Wright (House of Cards)
4. Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife)
5. Ruth Wilson (The Affair)
6. Claire Danes (Homeland)

The Lowdown: This is a genuine horse-race, in my opinion, while the other categories just have "upset potential."  Aside from the top three women, it seems like this race could go any number of ways.  In addition to Margulies, Wilson, and Danes, you also have last year's contenders Kerry Washington, Michelle Dockery, and Lizzy Caplan, as well as former nominees Vera Farmiga, Taylor Schilling, and Elisabeth Moss all clamoring for support.  My gut says they won't quite skip Margulies the year after she finally won (though some might view that as a career capper), Wilson just won the Golden Globe and women do better in this sort of stylized drama than men (hence no mention of Dominic West up-above), and Danes has never missed despite sketchiness regarding Homeland's quality.  If there's someone I'm trying to make room for but can't, it's Moss who may or may not gain from Mad Men's swan song season.

Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

1. Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones)
2. Jonathan Banks (Better Call Saul)
3. Jon Voight (Ray Donovan)
4. Mandy Patinkin (Homeland)
5. Jim Carter (Downton Abbey)
6. John Slattery (Mad Men)

The Lowdown: This is where I become like those people who are forced to predict the Oscars even when they haven't seen the movies, because most of the major contenders in this race I have no idea the strength of their season and am relying on other factors (like previous nominations and strength-of-buzz) to make my call.  Considering that this field looks somewhat weak on paper, I'm going to keep not only the frontrunner for the trophy (Banks), but also last year's eligible nominees (Dinklage, Voight, Patinkin, and Carter).  For the final slot, I'm skipping Ben Mendehlson in Bloodline and Michael Kelly in House of Cards in favor of a former Emmy nominee who never won and probably had support even when he missed (ala Wendie Malick and Holland Taylor all of those years): John Slattery.

Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series

1. Maggie Smith (Downton Abbey)
2. Christina Hendricks (Mad Men)
3. Uzo Aduba (Orange is the New Black)
4. Christine Baranski (The Good Wife)
5. Lorraine Toussaint (Orange is the New Black)
6. Lena Headey (Game of Thrones)

The Lowdown: The first four seem certain.  Three are Emmy titans and one is emerging as the "favorite" on her show and won an Emmy on her first try.  Lorraine Toussaint has gotten most of the plaudits for the latest season of Orange is the New Black, which should go a long way for her, particularly considering her role as a veteran character actress who has never made it before (hell, she could even win...witness Margo Martindale as an example).  The final nomination seems to be a three-way battle between two of last year's nominees (Lena Headey and Joanne Froggatt) and an Oscar-winning legend (Sissy Spacek).  Part of me feels like both Headey and Froggatt got in due to less competition than expected last year, and Spacek makes more sense, but Headey's "walk of shame" got a lot of really impressive press and it's not easy getting nominated for the first time in your show's fourth season when you've been there since the beginning.  So that makes me think Cersei will rise again.

Those are my predictions for Best Drama-do you agree, and if not, where did I make my mistakes?  And what names are you hoping to hear?  Share your thoughts in the comments!Bett

Who are the Real Stars of Mad Men?

It's kind of hard to fathom that Mad Men, one of my favorite programs, is about to go off the air.  It's become something of an institution in the world of entertainment, a fixture of television in the same vein as The Honeymooners, Dallas, and The Sopranos.  Few would argue that it's one of the finest pieces of television put to the screens, but I am starting to wonder, especially after the way the past few weeks have been framed, whether or not we have thought of the wrong person as the protagonist of the show.

The show has always been centered around Don Draper, a man who owns the screen with a cool elegance and a blunt sophistication.  He's a womanizer, a brilliant salesman, and an enigma, frequently even to himself.  But Don Draper, unlike other characters on television, has never really changed in the course of the show.  Yes, Don's been outed as not truly being Don Draper, but he's still a womanizer, he's still a drunk, he's still a man lost in his own making.  Instead, the characters on the show that truly seem to be the stars of the series, the ones who have grown throughout the series and seem to be the centerpiece in the last few episodes of the series (when the camera doesn't focus on Jon Hamm lighting a cigarette) are Peggy, Joan, and Betty.

Honestly, doesn't anyone else agree with this?  Look at this past week's episode and the weird juxtaposition these three women have in their own careers.  We have Joan (Christina Hendricks) losing her job essentially because she can't stand being the object of men's desire anymore.  Joan, who actually advised Peggy in the first season to dress more provocatively and was sleeping with her boss, ended up being confident enough not only to stand up for herself, but to point out why she deserved to be treated as better than she was being treated.  We also had Peggy (Elisabeth Moss), who has spent her career going from a secretary to a copy editor to the copy chief, and who is now in a crossroads in her career.  We see someone confident enough to tell a headhunter that she wants to be a head of accounts someday, and someone who may be comfortable that her window to have children has gone by, and that she is okay embracing her career.  And finally we have Betty (January Jones), who started the series as a Barbie-doll housewife, perfect in every way, all-the-while becoming a character who eventually decided that she could do better in her marriage and then do better in her life, becoming a more understanding mother and going back to college to become a psychologist.

These are all pretty rich character arcs, particularly on a show that frequently relies more on mood than on character development (the show may be the best series in history to prove that people don't really change of their own accord, but their circumstances force them to do so), and quite frankly they've been central to almost every season.  While not all three women (particularly Betty and Joan) have been crucial to every season, they've all been a part of it.  Betty in particular has drawn ire from some fans, but the reality is that these characters have been the key to most of the show's most dramatic moments, and have actually grown throughout the series.

It's also a fascinating reminder, as the series closes, of how the best dramas frequently become about more than just the characters that are at the top of the credits, but also, in many cases, about the characters toward the bottom of the call sheet.  Lost is a prime example of this-while Jack may be the center of the final episode, in many ways this series became about the strange dynamic between John Locke and Benjamin Linus, two men who were eternally lost in their own making.  Great writers let the compelling narratives rise to the top, and this is why Mad Men is so special and why other shows I haven't been as smitten by in the past few years (like House of Cards) have felt less essential while others seem to get this (like The Leftovers, which realized what a joy they had in Carrie Coon and gave her a showpiece, or Girls, and the way that they made the brilliant Adam Driver central to later seasons).  Joan, Peggy, and, Betty could have all stayed roughly where they were, but that wouldn't have made them more compelling, and it certainly wouldn't have made the stagnation of Don Draper all the more jarring as a result.  Still, I think it's important to acknowledge that these three women (none of whom have an Emmy yet-HINT HINT) have been critical to the show, and in the end may just have been its stars.